Field of the Invention
Embodiments of this disclosure are related to controlling the power consumption of packet processing devices.
Background Art
Packet processing devices, such as routers, switches, bridges, and the like, continue their growth in capacity and performance. For example, these devices continue to increase the overall link bandwidths that are supported on the data interfaces. Further, each of these devices may have a substantial number of data interfaces configured to operate at very high data rates. For example, many routers and switches in core networks have multiple interfaces operating at link bandwidths of 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps, 100 Gbps, or above.
As the link bandwidths increase, the packet processing devices are required to process an increased throughput of packets, which inevitably leads to higher power consumption. This is especially noticeable in data centers that aggregate various types network equipment, including packet processing devices, to support Internet traffic management and cloud computing. Typically, however, each network interface in a packet processing device has alternating periods of high bandwidth use and periods of low or minimal bandwidth use. Techniques, such as IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) may be used to reduce power consumption to some extent on particular ports when incoming traffic is low. For example, EEE provides a technique referred to as Low Power Idle (LPI) by which interfaces can be transitioned to a low power state when the corresponding links are determined to be idle. EEE also provides a sub-rating technique by which one or more channels in a multichannel physical layer interface (also referred to as “PHY”) can be deactivated when all the channels are not needed to accommodate the current bandwidth requirements. It is desirable, however, to reduce power consumption beyond the port-based savings associated with EEE.